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Starting the Game
Greetings wanderer, I have no idea what or why you have landed here. Perhaps you came seeking those ancient artifacts left abandoned and scattered when the Zyxlar departed for regions unknown. If you came looking for the Vilicus their left behind lap dogs well.. Good luck on your hunt those slinking shadow dwellers are not so easy to find, but can put up a decent fight. However if you are not hunting Pirates or any of those bedeviled Mob colonies and have ya some free time it may be worth your while to run some recons in this area. Seen some debris left behind a couple systems over where some poor feller had his can crunched, if ya have some salvage ships in that feet of yours. Won't cost ya nothin' but time to search things over. Some lucky captain just hauled a decrepit Dreadnought left in orbit from the star system just next door. Never know what ya'll find... If you are just starting off or yet to delve into the Universe of Dark Expanse one thing you will soon see is this is not your average space strategy game. The first major difference is that this is set in a three dimensional universe. To travel from point A to point B you will need to develop your astrogation technology. If you plan on getting there in say less then 3 hours you want to develop your propulsion technology. In Dark Expanse you will find that ships produced from one planet will have a set of abilities in Propulsion, Sensors, Shields, and Weapons that are unique to each planet. Each planet will have to develop its own technology but there is no set "Tech Tree" You are free to decide what course you wish to take. However now that you have your first planet and are setting off on your path of development there are a few things that may still throw you a curve ball. First off we have alien artifacts that can be found on every planet in every solar system. These items once found can be analyzed to further 'tweak' your ship statistics and create a very wide array of unique ships. Artifacts can be installed on ships or in PDB's (your base defenses) but hold on that's if they don't blow your Xenoarcheology labs up, or explode during installation. All kinds of events can and do happen galaxy wide every day. Earthquakes and technological break throughs that will adjust your planets over all resource production up or down. During what may seem an ordinary mission of just about every type you run the chance that the ordinary may turn out to be quite otherwise.. Abandoned space vessels left to drift. Indigent life forms already living on a planet you had set your eye on for colonization. These and more are all just part of the back drop for a game that can challenge the player who is drawn to world and empire building or the player who instead is drawn towards it's destruction. Or perhaps both. You can join a Federation and team up or run solo. You can wage war and death upon fellow players or try to stand your ground against the ever growing body of alien species or NPC's. If you enjoy things enough to decide to invest money into this game you will find that things are not set up to draw large sums of money. In fact even as a free player you will earn the same extra currency that paying players can buy. Everyone starts with 50 galactic Credits which is the currency that you can buy. These Credits can be used to buy bonuses such as extra resource's for a week or speed for your fleets, or maybe a bonus for defense. Even with these bonuses things are limited and do not stack so that this game is not dominated by money or the serious imbalances that many games have with the so called influx of the wallet warriors. Credits can be turned into Chits and will allow you to purchase all manner of game items. Chits are awarded to all players on a daily basis and continue to grow in quantity for each day you log in. If that's not enough then you can swap your Victory points for chits and take a knock to your standing in ranks till you earn back what you exchanged. If you are just starting up I still suggest you float through the video's in tutorials as you can skip through most of them and earn some extra Chits and prestige. You may have to execute a couple simple missions like building a factory or picking up a load of salvage. However you will even get a few free ships to start you off. So good luck commander and welcome to Dark Expanse... Andromeda and Black Eye There is currently Two speeds for two variable enviroments. Black Eye is set up for a faster pace, where Andromeda is set at "normal" speed. The major diffrence being that in Black eye it will take you 5 minutes to unload a cargo ship, where in Andromeda it will take 20 minutes. The Andromeda server advertises as a setting for the casual player. This means you can keep your empire going by only logging in a few times and for very short periods each day. What I mean by keeping your empire running is that you can stay on top of production and not worry about extra resources spilling over into non existence. Personally I would recommed trying both. See for yourself which one better fits your style.